<p>I’m not trying to challenge anyone because this is honestly just a question, but might there be a difference between homosexual attraction and homosexual acts?</p>
<p>Well, thats along the point I’m trying to make. He wants to say homosexual attraction is genetic. I’m only pointing out that each society has a different sexual ideology and a different rate of homosexuality.</p>
<p>Greece had ~100% of males with homosexual attractions. This can be seen in love poetry toward their little boyfriends etc etc.</p>
<p>Midieval Europe had 0% of males with homosexual attraction. The idea doesn’t appear in literature, plays, etc at all. It wasn’t that homosexuality was repressed, it was that there was no homosexuality.</p>
<p>Brazil has around 50% of people who are attracted to doing things we would consider homosexual.</p>
<p>We can continue to talk about homosexuality being genetic (nonsense such as animal “Altruism” genes evolving into gay genes - lol), or can we accept the obvious: homosexuality is a function of choice and society.</p>
<p>hey, you want to cite a source or two maize?</p>
<p>i wish it were just liberal politics that make me unable to respect your conjectures on the natural of homosexuality. much more so, it is your superposition of conservative politics upon scientific fact.</p>
<p>even the catholic church is capable of making this distinction. being homosexual is not a sin. it is only when you act on homosexual thoughts that you enter the moral realm, and can therefore be judged before god. otherwise, you are as god made you (ie it is genetically determined). </p>
<p>when your politics are to the right of the catholic church, i think you can safely assume you’re sitting beneath a veil of ignorance.</p>
<p>if you want we can also go into the various reasons your presupositions are incoherent with common experience. have you ever before known anyone who is homosexual? ask them how they knew? how they had to struggle with their sense of identity and ultimately surmount a deeply seeded societal expectation in order to resolve their sense of who they are?</p>
<p>"Let me explain. In classical Greece it was invariably common for men to be sexually attracted to boys. Homosexuality was seen as a social symbol. It meant you were wealthy enough to be able to have sex w/ boys and therefore everyone wanted to do it. Was 100% of ancient greece born with your homosexual gene or did they chose to? Don’t get me wrong - just like today these people didn’t exactly know they were making this choice, but they did. You can see how strongly they felt in all the poetry etc about the beauty of the human boy.</p>
<p>In Midieval Europe people were not ordered by sexual orientation. There was no homosexuality and therefore no homosexuals. Being gay was very, very, very, very rare. If it was genetic and there where lots of surpressed homosexuals during this time, why don’t we have writings, etc that tell of people struggling against their homosexuality? Why isn’t in mentioned in any literature of the time? Why was having sex with animals more common at the time? You can cry “the church” all day, but the church was less and less important from 1500 on. Why don’t we have these writings from that period after the enlightenment? Even where the church held no sway (the low countries) there was no homosexuality and no homosexuals. Was Europe 400 years ago genetically different from us?"</p>
<p>Again, sexual practices and customs vary by culture. However, I’d argue that a similar percentage of people who were exclusively homosexual exists today and in Ancient Greece. When it comes down to it, both heterosexual and homosexual can be arrousing and pleasurable for most people, but that doesn’t mean attraction is there. The Greeks had very liberal attitudes towards sex, but while sex between men was very common, most were primarily attracted to women. </p>
<p>There actually was a good deal of homosexuality in the Renaissance, but it was often punished harshly. I don’t know much about Medieval Europe, but one of my friends did a research paper on it, and it def. happened. Scholars are just now re-examining the past with an eye to sexuality.</p>
<p>Not really. What’s happening is a rewriting of history to try make it square with the modern ideal of sexuality. People are coming up with theories that people were gay based upon little evidence (EG people are claiming Shakespeare was gay because of his poems etc). There is little to no evidence to support this stuff.</p>
<p>And you’re wrong about there being gay literature during the Ren. I can’t prove there isn’t the literature by anything more than just telling you. It’s up to you to prove there is. There might be one or two pieces or some passing references, but don’t you think there would be a lot more if 20% (the number people now say are born gay) of people were struggling internally against their genes?</p>
<p>Homosexuality began an exponential increase in modernity as it began to be incorporated into medical texts in the 18th century. The idea of homosexuality had be created; homosexuals soon followed.</p>
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<p>Not true, adoloscent boys were considered the apex of beauty - much moreso than women.</p>
<p><a href=“http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:tb_eA1tRFH8J:www.shef.ac.uk/assem/issue7/matthews.html+gay+greek+poetry+ancient&hl=en[/url]”>http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:tb_eA1tRFH8J:www.shef.ac.uk/assem/issue7/matthews.html+gay+greek+poetry+ancient&hl=en</a></p>
<p>society was “enflamed with passion [for boys]” is the way a recent article put it.</p>
<p>They built statues, wrote love poetry, and were “enflamed with passion” - it sounds like they were “attracted” to boys to me!</p>
<p>maize, are you forgetting Dante’s inferno, that was early 1300s (Late Middle Ages I believe) and of course there is a circle for the sodomites (the 7th I believe, havent touched the inferno since 8th grade.) There was definitely homosexuality in the middle ages maize, in 8th grade I wrote a 10 page paper exploring Dante’s sexuality given what he wrote in the inferno, in particular is favorite teacher being someone mentioned or something like that, and also the girl (beatrice is her name?) whom he loves but has never spoken to.</p>
<p>Ancient Greece, please cite for me a poem about boys, i know that in ancient greece, boys were appreciated because of their resemblance to the female form. wait a second, did i just say female, yes i did, one of the reasons men had sex with boys was because they looked like girls, thats why they didnt have sex with men as much.</p>
<p>Brazilians & others, i know some tribes in some places have sex with boys on military campaigns, mainly as “release” and also I believe it’s considered a prize for capturing a town.</p>
<p>All in all, i believe true homosexuality, as in a real deep attraction for men is something that cannot be “chosen” in fact, I know Freud even touches on this, with his situational homosexuality (i.e. submarine sailers sequestered from women for so long they turn to each other for sexual pleasure). While one can commit homosexual acts out of his own volition, I believe the real attraction to the same gender comes from the unconscious mind.</p>
<p>You know why there was no literature on homosexuality in Medieval Europe? Because 1. Catholic church supression, and 2. it was the dark ages, very very few people ever wrote anything</p>
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<p>Actually for 1950 of its 2000 years it was wrong to even think it. Just an example of a religion trying to modernize. I don’t play politics by relativism. It isn’t political at all. I just used the term “liberal” because it’s the progressive idea of sexuality prevalant today.</p>
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<p>Bingo! …and genes DO NOT differ by culture. Ergo sexual practices and customs are not causually connected to genes. Self-defeating much?</p>
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<p>You want true incoherence? Try maintaining both these (like you’re trying to do)!</p>
<p>Homsexual attraction varies across cultures where genes do not vary
Homosexuality is causually connected to genes.</p>
<p>How does your question relate at all to answering mine? I said it may not be a conscious decision. I said the gay person may not be aware he’s making it. I said it is a fuction of decision making and SOCIETY.</p>
<p>It isn’t genetic.</p>
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<p>Why no literature from the low countries after the enlightenment where religion meant NOTHING?</p>
<p>oh i remembered this fun fact. There was definitely documentation of punishment of gays in the Middle Ages, however, only gay men. Lesbians were never punished, whereas any gay man was sentenced to death or other wierd punishments. (I wish i could find the books I used) Also maize, i see you mention adolescents. I’m not sure what the source is, but i know in latin adolescens simply means youth, and I’m sure it comes from some Greek cognate, one which i do not know, so “adolescents” may in fact be more like 8-10 yr olds.</p>
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<p>Well excuse me for not citing your 8th grade research paper. Now you want to claim Dante was gay because he incorporated some dogma into inferno? I don’t care what your eigth grade history teacher said. That’s a massive stretch.</p>
<p>Inferno contains TONS of obscure Tradition, doctrine, dogma, and superstition tied up in it. The fact that there is a quip about sodomy (note no mention of homosexual - this category that is so “natural”), doesn’t mean that homosexuality was practiced.</p>
<p>nice job trying to sound like you’re completely dominating me on this debate, but you definitely failed.</p>
<p>I never said you should cite my paper, I was just informing people that I have done the research on this. I included a lot more in the paper than I said in my post, I don’t remember much from 4 years ago. My history teacher didnt say **** about this, I came up with the topic all on my own and did the research myself. Also, it’s a little more than “a quip” about that circle of hell, and *** does your paranthetical mean? I cannot follow what point you are trying to make at all.</p>
<p>iwannabebrown: the word maize is referring to is “aita.” It is in fact used in Greek poetry, often with a sexual connotation. </p>
<p>“kad daerre kulichnais megalais aita poikilais”
is a line from a drinking song attributed to Alcaeus referencing young boys.</p>
<p>No, it was boys, but not that young. 14-16 was considered the height of beauty. </p>
<p>It’s prevelant in Aristophanes and Aeschylus’ plays. It’s present in all sorts of amatuer love poetry (it was an aristocratic pastime), and it’s present in famous poems as well.</p>
<p>Bacchylides himself writes not only of the nobles burning affection for their boy lovers, but of the jealousy of the common man and the lust that [the common man felt] toward these young men they could not have. </p>
<p>Socrates makes mention of this in one of Plato’s first dialogues (can’t recall which off the top of my head, but I’ll ask my resident greek scholar tomorrow).</p>
<p>So once again - why has homosexuality varied over time while genes have not?</p>
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<p>Exactly my point. It was incorporated into everyday life. From the highest family writing aristocratic (passionate) love poetry to the lowest peasant singing drinking songs, homosexual attraction to boys was a way of life.</p>
<p>So I ask for the tenth time: why does the amount of homosexuality vary when genes do not if homosexuality is genetic?</p>
<p>i think one thing you’re mixing up maize is performing homosexual acts and truly being a homosexual. I do not doubt anything you say regarding the amount of homosexual acts that occured during any given time period you mention, but I do believe that many of the people having sex with boys were not actually gay. Even today, many people do things to abide by society even though that’s not really what they want to do. What about closet homosexuals who live out fake straight lives, who the hell would choose to do that?</p>
<p>If people have homosexual tendencies, but are living in a supressive and dogmatic society, they will not come out. </p>
<p>You can never measure the “amount” of homosexuality truly present in a society–don’t be a fool.</p>
<p>Why don’t the Greeks in my example count as a true example of homosexual? They preferred sexual relations with boys over sexual relations with women. They beleived passionately that boys were more attractive, more desireable, etc.</p>
<p>What are they missing that would make them “true gays”?</p>
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<p>We don’t need to. It can be shown beyond almost all doubt there was RELATIVELY more homosexuality in ancient Greece than in contemporary US. That’s all I need to make my argument.</p>
<p>First, don’t start with the hate language. </p>
<p>Also, one thing I’m wondering is that in ancient Greece, I was under the impression that most men underwent a phase of homosexuality but then came out of it as soon as they got married. This was, I believe, a socially acceptable thing to do. Would you classify this as homosexuality or not? Or perhaps some form of bisexuality. Who knows.</p>
<p>Intrinsic urges.</p>